Trump imposes massive tariffs on Brazil over trial of ex-president Bolsonaro for fascist coup attempt

Tomas Castanheira & Guilherme Ferreira

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro and commanders of the Armed Forces, Adm. Almir Garnier Santos, Army Gen. Paulo Sergio Nogueira and Air Brig. Lt. Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior. [Photo: Marcos Corrês/PR]

In an extraordinary act of imperialist intimidation, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday the imposition of 50 percent tariffs on all products exported by Brazil to the United States. He directly linked the trade war measure to the ongoing trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro for the January 8, 2023 fascist coup attempt, denouncing the proceedings as a “witch hunt.”

The official letter sent to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party – PT) announced in its first paragraph:

The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!

In addition, the US president took issue with Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF) over its amending of the country’s Internet Bill of Rights, expanding the liability of digital platforms for illegal content posted by users, even without a court order. This decision clashes with a presidential decree issued in late January by Trump, who came to power in close alliance with the oligarchs owning the main social media networks.

The letter attributed the imposition of tariffs, to start on August 1, “in part to Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans.”

The first accusation—which implies the characterization of the Brazilian regime as a dictatorship—is apparently a reference to the denial of Bolsonaro’s right to run in the 2026 presidential elections. He was declared ineligible by the Brazilian Electoral Court in 2023 for his attempts to undermine the democratic electoral process.

The reference to “insidious attacks” on the “free speech rights of Americans” refers to decisions by the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) demanding the removal of content and accounts from sites such as Rumble and Twitter, which Trump called “secret and unlawful censorship orders to U.S. social media platforms.”

The letter also justified the trade war measures based on the claim of a “longstanding, and very unfair trade relationship” with Brazil. It absurdly claimed that trade relations with Brazil generate “unsustainable Trade Deficits against the United States” and that the “50% number is far less than what is needed to have the Level Playing Field.” In reality, the United States maintains a consistent trade surplus with Brazil, with US exports exceeding imports by US$ 7.4 billion in 2024.

The tariffs, which come into effect in 20 days, will have a profound impact on the Brazilian economy, with the US ranking as the country’s second-largest export market, trailing only China.

Representatives of Brazilian agribusiness, which massively exports products such as orange juice, coffee and beef to the US, were deeply alarmed by Trump’s measures. The same is true for Brazil’s steel industry, whose large exports to the US had already been hit by an increase in tariffs to 25 percent in March and later to 50 percent in June.

Assessing the implications of Trump’s announcement, the president of Brazil Steel Institute, Marco Polo Lopes, told Estado de São Paulo: “Everything was moving towards an agreement. Now, it’s unpredictable.” Calling on Brazilian authorities to keep up their negotiation efforts, he concluded: “This is not good for either side.”

The measures announced by Trump defy any attempts to present them from the logical standpoint of “negotiations.” Their purpose is to bend the Brazilian government to Washington’s will and impose a relationship of naked imperialist domination based on force.

They follow the same logic as the tariffs announced in January this year against Colombia, after President Gustavo Petro refused to accept flights carrying immigrants deported from the US under degrading conditions. Trump responded by announcing 25 percent tariffs on Colombian products, and Petro backed down.

The political logic behind these measures was analyzed by the Socialist Equality Group (GSI) in the International May Day rally: “Trump’s return to the White House marks a realignment of US imperialist foreign policy toward domination of the Western Hemisphere, seen as a necessary step in its offensive against China.”

The statement quoted Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of SOUTHCOM, who declared in a speech to the US Congress in February: “The [Latin America and the Caribbean] region is on the front lines of a decisive and urgent contest to define the future of our world. China is assailing US interests from all directions, in all domains.” Washington “must meet presence with presence,” Holsey concluded.

Significantly, Trump’s announcement follows the BRICS summit, which was hosted in Rio de Janeiro last weekend. Initially formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, the group added half a dozen more countries last year.

In a confrontation with the Trump administration, the BRICS summit’s final statement called for a comprehensive reform of the UN; advocated that each country establish its own regulatory framework for large technology companies; criticized protectionism, condemned tariffs and barriers that harm international trade; and repudiated recent attacks on Russia and Iran, one of the countries that joined BRICS last year.

Nevertheless, the summit—and Lula’s leadership in particular—did everything not to upset Washington and never named the US as the perpetrator of the criminal bombardment of Iran.

Before announcing the tariffs on products exported from Brazil, Trump had already threatened earlier in the week that any country that aligns itself with the “anti-American” policies of the BRICS will be subject to an extra 10 percent tariff.

In an emblematic statement, Lula’s Minister of Economy, Fernando Haddad, declared after the summit that “Brazil has relations with the whole world” and “cannot become an appendage of an economic bloc [i.e., BRICS].” Showing off his spinelessness and blindness, Haddad sought to tranquilize public opinion, declaring: “President Lula has a team sitting at the table with the US government discussing our bilateral agreement.”

Trump’s letter provoked panicked moves in the Brazilian government. After an emergency meeting at the Planalto Palace, Lula declared on social media: “Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that will not accept being dictated to by anyone.” The government also announced it would impose reciprocal tariffs against the US.

In a reference to Bolsonaro, who led a coup attempt in early 2023 in Brazil that mirrored Trump’s January 6, 2021 coup, Lula said, “The legal proceedings against those who planned the coup are the sole responsibility of the Brazilian justice system and are therefore not subject to any kind of interference or threat that undermines the independence of national institutions.”

In an interview with Jornal da Record on Thursday, Lula expressed his astonishment at the letter and reaffirmed his desperate interest in reestablishing the basis for negotiations with the US. He said:

Look, I thought President Trump’s letter was apocryphal ... Brazil is a country that, if President Trump knew a little bit about, he would have more respect for. ... Brazil has had a 200-year relationship with the United States. A diplomatic relationship, a virtuous relationship, a relationship that benefits both sides. I got along well with all the presidents, I got along well with Clinton, I got along well with Bush, I got along well with Obama, I got along well with Biden.

At the same time, the PT and its pseudo-left allies reinforced their reactionary nationalist campaign, accusing Bolsonaro and his allies of “anti-patriotism” and hailing the common interests of the Brazilian bourgeoisie they represent.

The Brazilian corporate media also reacted nervously to Trump’s announcement. The main bourgeois newspapers published editorials harshly criticizing Trump’s tariffs and praising Lula for the measures taken so far. Estado wrote that “this is the work of mafiosos,” and condemned Bolsonaro and his allies, the most important of them, the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas.

Freitas blamed Trump’s tariffs on Lula himself, claiming that the president “put his ideology above the economy, and this is the result. They had time to honor dictatorships, defend censorship, and attack the largest direct investor in Brazil. … There is no point in hiding behind Bolsonaro.”

In an emblematic statement, the president of the Chamber of Deputies’ Foreign Relations Committee, Filipe Barros of Bolsonaro’s PL party, declared that “Lula is repeatedly provoking the US government ... aligning himself with the countries of the so-called ‘axis of evil.’”

At the same time, the media is promoting tremendous complacency. “Donald Trump’s history of announcing decisions that are never implemented casts doubt on the implementation of these additional tariffs,” stated Folha de São Paulo’s editorial.

Estado, for its part, stated: “[The] family and allies of the former president [Bolsonaro] celebrated as if they had won the lottery. And they believe that until the day of the Supreme Court ruling, there will be new demonstrations. ... It is unlikely that they will save Bolsonaro from almost certain conviction and imprisonment. And even more unlikely is that, with the exception of his fanatical supporters, a single Brazilian will be moved by Donald Trump’s words.”

The idea that Trump is just bluffing, or that his measures are inconsequential, is false and dangerous. For Brazil, which lived under a bloody US-backed dictatorship between 1964 and 1985, the escalation of the imperialist offensive marked by Trump’s statement has profound consequences.

Bolsonaro and his fascist military leadership have responded to the legal proceedings against the coup they conspired to carry out between 2022 and 2023 with a political offensive. On different occasions, Bolsonaro and his closest allies have presented the United States as the center of coordination for this political response.

Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, has been in the US since February, in intense meetings with Republican lawmakers to get the Trump administration to implement measures against the STF and the Lula government in response to the trial his father is facing in Brazil. The recent measure announced by Trump marks a turning point in this offensive, which will have explosive effects on Brazil.

Speaking to CNN before Trump’s announced tariffs, Eduardo Bolsonaro claimed to expect US sanctions against STF judge Alexandre de Moraes, saying: “This is what I have always sought here in the US, since there are no tools available in Brazil.”

Australian government prepares assault on privacy for under-16s social media ban

Eric Ludlow

The Australian Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is reviewing the means by which it will implement a social media ban for children under the age of 16, including the possible use of technology which severely curtails the privacy of children and other social media users.

The legislation was first announced in November last year with bipartisan support and is set to come into effect this December.

Because official identification documents such as passports cannot legally be used to check online users’ ages and track individuals, the government commissioned in November 2024 a trial of different technologies to “assure” an online user’s age. More than 50 companies entered the trial. The government is expected to reveal its conclusions by the end of July.

This will lead to a major attack on individual privacy forced on all Australian social media users as a result of the anti-democratic ban.

Social media app icons

Proposed techniques for age estimation of social media users include facial analysis or tracking individuals’ online metadata to determine if a user is under the age of 16. In other words, the government is preparing to grant permission for tech giants to have access to every person in Australia’s personal information, track their online activity and image their faces every time they log onto social media.

In fact, facial recognition systems are so poor at estimating age that improving these tools would require a massive collection of children’s facial images—something which is illegal.

Current technologies on trial include facial recognition tools which use “selfie-based” age checks and hand movement technologies. They claim that sensitive information will be stored securely on block chains.

An analysis in the Conversation published in May highlights that the proposed social media ban “marks a significant shift in internet regulation. Rather than age-gating specific content such as porn or gambling, Australia is now targeting basic communication infrastructure—which is what social media have become.”

Albanese’s initial announcement of the proposed legislation was made on the baseless claim that “social media is causing social harm.” The real purpose of the ban is to restrict access among children and teenagers to information, above all increasingly anti-establishment commentary amid a massive political crisis and explosion of militarism overseen by governments around the world.

Now the unfounded justifications for the suppression of social media access for young people is being used to call for the legislation’s deepening nearly six months before it has even been implemented.

Last month, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, wrote an official advice to the federal minister for communications Michelle Rowland in which Grant called on the government to expand its blacklist of social media platforms to include YouTube. The original proposal included the platforms X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Reddit.

Inman Grant’s advice to include YouTube in the list of banned platforms is based on the flimsy reasoning that 37 percent of 10- to 15-year-olds who had seen unspecified “online hate” had seen it on YouTube according to a survey conducted by the commissioner’s office. According to eSafety, 21 percent of children reported their most “recent” or “impactful” experience of “online hate” occurring on YouTube.

The advice from Inman Grant has been immediately seized upon by the federal opposition Liberal-National Coalition whose shadow cabinet secretary Andrew Wallace urged that the Labor government “needs to listen” to the recommendation.

The concern around YouTube—a platform with a well-known emphasis on curating both educational and entertainment content for children—highlights that the legislation’s real aim has nothing to do with alleviating mental health problems or improving social interactions of children.

In fact, children’s charity UNICEF and Australian youth mental health foundation Headspace have both raised concerns that the ban will affect the ability of youth to stay connected with family and friends.

Labor’s proposed proscription on social media use for an entire cohort of the population is the first of its kind by a government in any so-called democratic country. It has been followed by similar initiatives in Britain, Ireland, Singapore and Japan.

Any claim that the attempt to prevent children and teenagers from accessing social media is bound up with mental health is a cynical fraud.

Youth mental health issues are on the rise not because of social media, but because of the destruction of social and living conditions, which are being exposed through social media.

Young people today are far worse off than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. The future they face is one of joblessness, soaring living costs, lack of housing, environmental collapse, war and dictatorship.

What the ruling elite in Australia fear above all is that social media, by exposing the immense social crisis that is unfolding, is playing a critical role in radicalising an entire generation. Youth are bypassing the mainstream media outlets to find their news on social media. While there, they are also encountering new ideas and perspectives which are anti-establishment, anti-war and opposed to the interests of the ruling elite.

The attempt to ban social media access for under 16s is intended to neuter that growing radicalisation and prevent the spread of oppositional, above all left-wing sentiment.

This comes amid a broader imposition of sweeping anti-democratic legislation in Australia aimed at suppressing basic democratic rights. The initial target of this has been the protests against the US-Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, which has sparked outrage globally, particularly young people who have joined demonstrations and other actions calling for an end to Israel’s ethnic cleansing and the support it enjoys from the major imperialist powers including Australia.

In Australia, young people have been at the forefront of the assault by the government on the basic right to protest and political speech.

The University of Melbourne has expelled two students and suspended two others for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests on campus. This followed the expulsion of pro-Palestinian students at the Australian National University, before their enrolments were reinstated after widespread opposition to the university management’s move.

Management at the University of Melbourne has already been exposed for tracking its students’ movements through the university Wi-Fi network as part of its investigations to identify and discipline anti-genocide protesters.

More broadly, opposition to the Gaza genocide is being smeared as antisemitism in a government-led crackdown on anti-war speech. State and federal Labor governments are employing ever more brutal methods to suppress growing opposition, as evidenced by the police assault on a pro-Palestinian protest in Sydney last month, which saw a young woman suffer horrific injuries that could see her lose sight in one eye.

Thyssenkrupp Steel demands €200 million in wage cuts

Dietmar Gaisenkersting

Thyssenkrupp facility in Duisburg [Photo by Bundesanstalt für Wasserbau / CC BY 2.0]

The early works council election at Thyssenkrupp Steel’s largest plant has only just ended, and already the IG Metall union is preparing to implement the attacks being demanded by the company’s top management.

For several weeks now, IG Metall officials and works council representatives have been sitting down with the executive board to coordinate the “restructuring” of Thyssenkrupp’s steel division. The plan is to cut 11,000 of the 27,000 jobs and reduce wages by 10 percent.

On Saturday, the union for the first time presented the steel management’s concrete proposals for the planned cost-cutting. IG Metall listed 10 points:

1. Elimination of all one-off payments, such as Christmas and holiday bonuses
2. Scrapping of long-service bonuses
3. Pay freeze in the upcoming collective bargaining round
4. Reduction of the working week from 34 to 33 hours with no wage compensation
5. Abolition of the collectively agreed extra “winter day”
6. Reduction in working hours without pay compensation for non-collective-contract employees (details not specified)
7. Elimination of the six additional days off for non-collective-contract employees, though these can be “bought back” by accepting pay cuts
8. Halving of on-call duty additional pay
9. Fewer apprentices, no permanent positions for trainees
10. Elimination of employer’s contributions to employee savings schemes

Altogether, these measures are intended to save €200 million a year. The steel board under Dennis Grimm wants to lock them in for—initially—four years.

In its leaflet, IG Metall loudly rails against this “list of poisons,” but makes its stance clear right at the start: “There is no dispute that the economic situation at Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe is extremely strained.” Chief negotiator Knut Giesler is quoted as saying: “It’s already five past midnight, sad as it is, TKSE has become a restructuring case.”

That is why IG Metall and the works council had no fundamental objection from the outset to the loss of 11,000 jobs. They merely insisted, as always, that this should happen without compulsory redundancies. The demand for a 10 percent reduction in labour costs has long been on the table.

At this point, a clear warning is needed: Giesler, IG Metall’s regional secretary, is the one who, with the help of the union apparatus and the works council, will implement all these attacks in collaboration with steel management. When he is quoted in the leaflet saying “a grab this hard into our colleagues’ wallets is not something IG Metall will accept,” regarding next week’s negotiations, what it really means is that the attack on workers’ pay will simply be organised differently.

Giesler and his negotiating team will arrange the jobs massacre in a “socially acceptable” manner—with early retirement schemes, phased retirement, severance packages and so on. Anyone who doesn’t qualify for these because they are too young or too expensive will be shunted into a so-called “transfer company,” a short stop before the dole office.

Just as they are working out how to destroy one in four jobs, they will find mechanisms to implement a 10 percent reduction in personnel costs. It would not be the first time they have agreed a temporary reduction in working hours without full wage compensation to shift costs onto the workforce. It is quite possible that the already agreed closures of smaller plants—such as in Bochum, Kreuztal-Eichen or even the Krupp Mannesmann steelworks (HKM) in southern Duisburg with 3,000 jobs—will be brought forward.

IG Metall has always displayed great “creativity” when it comes to enforcing the interests of shareholders.

In the past, the union has always defused workforce opposition by staging loud protests and media-friendly demonstrations. It will try the same again this time. In the past, government representatives from the federal and North Rhine-Westphalia state governments have often been invited along so they could placate workers with promises—of subsidies for the switch to “green steel,” for example.

IG Metall will also play up the importance of the domestic steel industry for wartime needs. After all, it supports the pro-war policies of both the old and the new federal government, and has made it clear in this context that it supports shifting the enormous costs of rearmament and war onto the working class.

Yet despite all the militant rhetoric of the works council reps and union officials at their events, not one of their announced “fights” has ever materialised. Almost a year ago, Ali Güzel, chair of the steel works council, shouted outside the head office in Duisburg: “We will start fighting tomorrow. Someone has to stop this madness. Who if not us?” Since then, nothing of the sort has happened.

It will be no different this time if Güzel and company have their way. IG Metall and its works council now claim: “We say: Enough is enough! We stand together. We fight together. And we will not be divided. … Now is the time to show our presence and stand united.”

By “showing presence,” the bureaucrats mean more noisy protests. The emphasis on “closing ranks” is a warning to anyone who really wants to fight: do not defy the dictates of the IG Metall works council and the union apparatus behind it. Submit and stay quiet.

They will use the recent works council election as a bargaining chip—an election that was brought forward for precisely this reason. Three weeks ago, we wrote, “The election serves solely to push through the job massacre that the company has announced.”

We rejected the argument of IG Metall trust body leader and works councillor Dirk Riedel that IG Metall needed “a mandate from the rank and file” through the works council election. Instead, we said Riedel “will wave the result of the election under the nose of anyone who objects to the social plan presented in the summer and prattle on about the “mandate IG Metall received in the election.” The works council election is intended to nip any oppositional efforts in the bud.